Hang-up during Introduction (HUDI)

A telephone interview that is terminated by the respondent during the introduction of the interview shortly after an interviewer has made contact is called a hang-up during introduction (HUDI). HUDI is a form of refusal to the survey request that is growing in occurrence and provides little or no opportunity for the interviewer to overcome the respondent objection.

The most difficult time to assure success in a telephone interview is during the first few seconds of the call. During this time, the interviewer has to identify the purpose and legitimacy of the call. In the past two decades, there has been an increasing tendency for respondents to hang up on the interviewer during this time without completing a full interaction with the interviewer. In contrast, in the 1970s and 1980s when telephone surveys were first gaining their legitimacy as a valid survey method of the public, there was a social norm that held most people to not hang up on a stranger (the interviewer who called them) abruptly. However, with the problems causes by excessive telemarketing in the 1990s and busy lifestyles, people are far less reluctant to just hang up.

Early work in the late 1980s found that 40% of refusals occur in the first two sentences of the introduction. Similarly, more recent research has found that HUDIs last an average of 15 seconds. A study in 2003 found that one in four HUDIs occur without the respondent saying anything at all to the interviewer, and a 2005 study found two fifths of respondents hanging up on the interviewer without speaking. Respondents may give brief and abrupt objections, which are most frequently an indication of “not interested” or “don't have time” and then abruptly hang up.

Urbanicity has been found to be negatively associated with response rate. This finding is reflected in the incidence of HUDIs by metropolitan area size. A 2005 study found a 6 percentage point gap in the occurrence of HUDIs in the 10 largest metropolitan areas compared to cities and towns of less than 200,000 population. The Northeast and West regions of the United States show the highest rates of HUDIs while the Midwest rate was found to be 5 points lower. The study also showed that households that had been sent a pre-notification mailer (advance letter or postcard) were less likely to hang up during the introduction.

The interviewer is challenged with trying to establish rapport and engage the respondent while introducing the purpose of the call. In the 1970s and 1980s, interviewer research focused on identifying the words to use in a scripted introduction to improve respondent cooperation rates. The result was the identification of preferred words but no clear agreement on the benefit of scripted introductions. During the 1990s, attention shifted to techniques of allowing interviewers to tailor introductions to engage the respondent. The goal is to maintain interaction with the respondent. Studies have found that the longer interaction is maintained, the more likely it will result in a completed interview.

The success of maintaining interaction is dependent on the interviewer skill as well as the words of the introduction and the respondent behavior. More recent research has shifted from identifying the specific words to say to identifying the interviewer characteristics that best predict a successful interview. However, with HUDIs, the interviewer has no time to respond to an objection, if one is voiced. There have been renewed efforts to develop interviewer refusal aversion training to prepare interviewers to quickly identify the most important concern of the respondent and how to overcome the objection. In addition, research is exploring characteristics of successful interviewers, including voice characteristics, which result in higher respondent cooperation rates.

...